Titanic (1997 film)

Titanic is a 1997 American epic romantic disaster film directed, written, co-produced and co-edited by James Cameron. Incorporating both historical and fictionalized aspects, it is based on accounts of the sinking of RMS Titanic in 1912. The film stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet as members of different social classes who fall in love during the ship's maiden voyage. The film also features an ensemble cast of Billy Zane, Kathy Bates, Frances Fisher, Bernard Hill, Jonathan Hyde, Danny Nucci, David Warner, and Bill Paxton.

Cameron's inspiration for the film came from his fascination with shipwrecks. He felt a love story interspersed with human loss would be essential to convey the emotional impact of the disaster. Production began on September 1, 1995, when Cameron shot footage of the Titanic wreck. The modern scenes on the research vessel were shot on board the Akademik Mstislav Keldysh, which Cameron had used as a base when filming the wreck. Scale models, computer-generated imagery, and a reconstruction of the Titanic built at Baja Studios were used to recreate the sinking. The film was initially in development at 20th Century Fox, but a mounting budget and being behind schedule resulted in Fox asking Paramount Pictures for financial help; Paramount handled distribution in the United States and Canada, while Fox released the film in other territories. Titanic was the most expensive film ever made at the time, with a production budget of $200 million. Filming took place from July 1996 to March 1997.

Titanic premiered at the Tokyo International Film Festival on November 1, 1997, and was released in the United States on December 19. It was praised for its visual effects, performances (particularly those of DiCaprio, Winslet, and Gloria Stuart), production values, direction, score, cinematography, story, and emotional depth. Among other awards, it was nominated for 14 Academy Awards and won a record-tying 11, including Best Picture and Best Director, tying Ben-Hur (1959) for the most Academy Awards won by a film. With an initial worldwide gross of over $1.84 billion, Titanic was the first film to reach the billion-dollar mark. It was the highest-grossing film of all time until Cameron's next film, Avatar (2009), surpassed it in 2010. Income from the initial theatrical release, retail video, and soundtrack sales and US broadcast rights exceeded $3.2 billion. A number of re-releases have pushed the film's worldwide theatrical total to $2.264 billion, making it the second film to gross more than $2 billion worldwide after Avatar. Often regarded as one of the most talked film in the history, the Library of Congress selected it for preservation in the United States National Film Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" in 2017.

In 1996, aboard the research vessel Akademik Mstislav Keldysh, treasure hunter Brock Lovett and his team explore the wreck of RMS Titanic, hoping to find a necklace known as the Heart of the Ocean. Instead, they recover a safe containing a drawing of a young woman wearing the necklace. The sketch is dated April 14, 1912, the day the Titanic struck an iceberg and sank, resulting in about 1,500 deaths. After seeing a television report about the discovery, centenarian Rose Dawson Calvert contacts Lovett, revealing herself as the woman in the drawing. Hoping she can help locate the necklace, Lovett brings Rose and her granddaughter aboard the Keldysh, where Rose recounts her experience as a Titanic passenger.

In 1912, 17-year-old Rose DeWitt Bukater boards the Titanic in Southampton with her wealthy fiancé, Cal Hockley, and her mother, Ruth. Ruth stresses that Rose's marriage to Cal will resolve their financial problems, but Rose is unhappy in the loveless engagement. Feeling trapped, Rose contemplates suicide by jumping from the ship's stern, but is stopped by Jack Dawson, a poor nomadic artist. Jack and Rose form a friendship, and Jack confesses his growing feelings for her. Though initially resistant, Rose realizes she has fallen in love with Jack, despite Cal's and Ruth's disapproval.

Rose brings Jack to her stateroom and asks him to draw her nude wearing only the necklace. Afterward, they evade Cal's valet, Spicer Lovejoy, and have sex in a car in the cargo hold. On the forward deck, they witness the ship's collision with an iceberg and overhear officers discussing the severity of the situation. When Cal discovers Jack's sketch of Rose and a mocking note she left, he arranges to frame Jack for theft by having Lovejoy plant the necklace on him. Jack is arrested and locked in the master-at-arms' office, while Cal places the necklace in his coat pocket.

As the ship begins sinking, women and children are prioritized for the lifeboats. Rose finds and frees Jack, and they return to the deck, where Cal urges Rose to board a lifeboat, claiming he and Jack will board another. He unwittingly wraps his coat, containing the necklace, around her. However, as her lifeboat is lowered, Rose jumps back onto the sinking ship, unwilling to leave Jack behind. Enraged, Cal grabs a pistol and chases them through the flooding ship but gives up when they escape. Cal manages to secure a place on a lifeboat by pretending to be a child's father.

As the ship's flooded bow sinks, the stern rises into the air, and Jack and Rose cling to the railing. The ship splits in two, and the stern sinks into the freezing water with the remaining passengers. Jack helps Rose onto floating debris and makes her promise to survive and live a full life. Jack dies from hypothermia, but Rose is saved by a returning lifeboat, and later rescued by the RMS Carpathia. Rose remains hidden from Cal and her mother, and gives her name as Rose Dawson on her arrival in New York City.

In the present, Rose reveals that Cal committed suicide after losing his fortune in the 1929 stock market crash. She tells the Keldysh crew that Jack saved her in every possible way, and laments that her memories are all that she has left of him. Touched by her account of the Titanic, Lovett abandons his search for the necklace. Alone at night on the stern of the Keldysh, Rose, who has kept the necklace in her possession all along, drops it into the sea above the wreck. Later, as she lies in her bed, photographs on her dresser depict a life of freedom and adventure inspired by Jack. Aboard the pristine and undamaged Titanic, a young Rose reunites with Jack at the Grand Staircase, applauded by the passengers and crew who died in the sinking.

Although not intended to be an entirely accurate depiction of events, the film includes portrayals of various historical figures:

Several crew members of the Akademik Mstislav Keldysh appear, including Anatoly Sagalevich, the creator and pilot of the Mir self-propelled Deep Submergence Vehicle. Van Ling portrayed Fang Lang; his backstory inspired Cameron to produce a documentary The Six, based on a group of Chinese survivors who survived the sinking. Anders Falk, who filmed a documentary about the film's sets for the Titanic Historical Society, makes a cameo appearance in the film as a Swedish immigrant whom Jack Dawson meets when he enters his cabin; Edward Kamuda and Karen Kamuda, then President and Vice President of the Society, who served as film consultants, were cast as extras in the film.

James Cameron has long had a fascination with shipwrecks, and for him Titanic was "the Mount Everest of shipwrecks". He was almost past the point in his life when he felt he could consider an undersea expedition, but said he still had "a mental restlessness" to live the life he had turned away from when he switched from the sciences to the arts in college. When an IMAX film, Titanica, was made from footage shot of the Titanic wreck, Cameron decided to seek Hollywood funding for his own expedition. It was "not because I particularly wanted to make the movie," Cameron said. "I wanted to dive to the shipwreck."

Cameron wrote a scriptment for a Titanic film, met with 20th Century Fox executives including Peter Chernin, and pitched it as "Romeo and Juliet on the Titanic". Cameron said the executives were unconvinced of the commercial potential, and had instead hoped for action scenes similar to his previous films. They approved the project as they hoped for a long-term relationship with Cameron.

Cameron convinced Fox to promote the film based on the publicity afforded by shooting the Titanic wreck, and organized several dives over a period of two years. He also convinced Fox that shooting the real wreck for the film scenes, instead of simulating it with special effects, would provide value: "We can either do [the shots] with elaborate models and motion control shots and CG and all that, which will cost X amount of money – or we can spend X plus 30 per cent and actually go shoot it at the real wreck."

The crew shot at the wreck in the Atlantic Ocean 12 times in 1995. The work was risky, as the water pressure could kill the crew if there were a tiny flaw in the submersible structure. Additionally, adverse conditions prevented Cameron from getting footage. During one dive, one of the submersibles collided with Titanic's hull, damaging both sub and ship, and leaving fragments of the submersible's propeller shroud scattered around the superstructure. The external bulkhead of the captain's quarters collapsed, exposing the interior, and the area around the entrance to the Grand Staircase was damaged.

Descending to the site emphasized to the crew that the Titanic disaster was not simply a story but a real event with real loss of life. Cameron said: "Working around the wreck for so much time, you get such a strong sense of the profound sadness and injustice of it, and the message of it." He felt a "great mantle of responsibility" to convey the emotional message of the story, as he was aware there might never be another filmmaker to visit the wreck.